Out of Style
by ambivia
Summary: Mira is not a blushing bride, Laxus screws up the honeymoon tickets, and the ring very mysteriously goes missing hours before the wedding. So entails a high speed chase through Paris and a temperamental truce between the best man and the bridesmaid. —bixanna, modern au.
1. in which the honeymoon vamooses

**notes—** for some reason i thought starting a rareship multichap would be fun. none of my _friends_ were kind enough to remind me that fics like these are the sadistic spawn of satan bc writing them is like waiting in line for three hours only to learn that the last ticket sold out two and a half hours ago._ assholes._

so, i'm thinking somewhere between 200 and 1200 each, sound good? okay great. that can be our rule. great.

* * *

_out_  
_of_  
_style_

* * *

**i. in which the honeymoon vamooses**

;;

_love's a game—wanna play?_

.

.

"You can't be serious. Hawaii?"

"Mm~. It's supposed to be lovely even during winter."

"How romantic of _my_ Laxus—"

"Shush, Freed—"

"The hell's he thinking, taking you to _Hawaii? _What happened to the Venice plan?"

"It va_moosed_—"

"Freed, would you _stop_—" Mirajane gives a serene smile. "I'd rather Hawaii than Venice, to be honest. I could do with a relaxing honeymoon and Venice is so cold in November anyway. Some quiet privacy is long overdue, don't you think?"

Evergreen fixes her glasses, pushing them up the bridge of her nose. "But Venice is so romantic! The gondolas, the midnight singing, the moon's reflection on the canal!" She clears her throat haughtily. "I can't believe you're not making a bigger deal of the change. You'll miss out on so much."

Bixlow lazily twirls a teaspoon in his coffee, gazing distractedly at the Parisian street through the café window. Ever's voice, loud and American, feels unusually rough to him in contrast to the gentle French babble around him. He doesn't really pay much attention to what she's saying. It's nothing new — he hears this on repeat at least twice a week. She's always moaning about her office in New York, full of complaints about what's keeping her from making the transfer already.

But she's been dating that meat-head for more years than he cares to count, and she's managed to keep up with the monthly weekend trips for all that time. Bixlow suspects that there is a part of Evergreen that is worried that the exotic allure Paris presents to her would be dimmed should she make it her permanent residence.

His best friend's always been a bit weird like that.

"Right, Bixlow?"

"Huh?" He drops the spoon and leans back in his chair, glancing at Mirajane. "What'd ya say?"

She throws him her characteristic angelic-monster grin (sans monster for about six years now) before shaking her head in amusement. Across from her, Freed continues to slowly sip his decaf upside down soy milk with whipped cream latte macchiato (because he's just obnoxious like that), unfazed.

Evergreen, however, is not as forgiving as the rest. "Would it kill you to pay attention?"

Bixlow raises an eyebrow half-heartedly. "Probably?"

"Ha. You're funny."

"You're stating the obvious."

Before Evergreen can cut in with another snippy remark, Freed intervenes. "She was asking if you were going with Laxus this weekend."

"What?" He blinks twice.

"He's flying back to the States this Friday for wedding preparations..."

"Oh. Right. 'Course he is."

"Wow." Freed blows lightly across his steaming mug. "It's not like you should know or anything. You only see each other for six hours every day."

"We're hardly discussing our social lives while filing film scripts."

"You're his _best man_, Bixlow."

He levels Freed with a blank stare.

Evergreen lets out a frustrated cry at Bixlow's deadpan silence, burying her face in her hands. "What was he _thinking_? You're going to manage to screw this up single-handedly, I just know it."

"Was Hawaii your idea, Bixlow?" Mirajane asks too innocently.

"I suppose I'll have to go with him," he answers Freed, casually ignoring the girls sitting across the table. "That's cool. I haven't been back for a few months."

Freed cocks an eyebrow at his indifference before raising his cup to his lips again and asking Mirajane about potential seating arrangements. The conversation carries on, floating over florists and caterers and all sorts of other topics that Evergreen can try to panic over.

Bixlow yawns and settles back with renewed vigour to stare at the grey day outside.


	2. in which she sleeps on the way

**notes—** so there's this anon reader who's left me a ton of _wonderful_ feedback and since i couldn't thank them in person, i figured i could at least give them the chapter they requested. so blame **Reviewer** for this trash, because it really is all their fault.

* * *

_out_  
_of_  
_style_

* * *

**ii. in which she sleeps on the way**

;;

_if i could try a little harder i would succeed—oh,  
i'd rather give up, and be happy_

.

.

Lisanna knows Charles de Gaulle Airport as well as her old high school corridors. It's like looking at pictures of her younger self and imagining what it would be like to wear that hairstyle—a hairstyle she has to admit is really just a glorified bowl cut—now as a twenty-four year old.

Basically, navigating from one terminal to the next is both nostalgic and shudder-inducing. It's _horrifying_, quite frankly, and by the time she meets her brother in the waiting area outside baggage claim, her jaw is sore from clenching and her neck cracks every time she looks too far to the left.

Elfman quirks a grin her way, taking the handle of the heavy suitcase from her sore fingers. "Sleep on the way?"

"Regrettably." She grimaces as she tries to massage some feeling back into her stiff calves. "You'd think those eight hours would feel a little shorter after so many years of flying them, but nope. The Atlantic's as obnoxiously oversized as it ever was."

"Something we have in common," he laughs.

When Elfman glances at his phone, Lisanna reflexively does too, and immediately averts her gaze when she realises it's all in French. When her big brother started living in another language, she has no idea, but all of a sudden he's texting in French in front of her and it hits her in the face like a splash of cold water.

"How are the wedding plans going?" she asks, half out of obligatory concern as the bridesmaid, and half something else entirely.

Elfman pockets the smartphone and glances down at Lisanna with a rueful smile. "Great. Just great. Nee-san's switched dresses seven times to date, and Freed insists on walking Laxus down the aisle."

Lisanna isn't sure how to respond to that, so she stays silent.

"Ready to go?"

She nods and lets him lead the way, re-adjusting the straps of her backpack so they don't dig into her shoulders _quite _so viciously.

On their way, she catches snippets of smooth rapid French; from taxi drivers, coffee drinkers, luggage losers, business men in crumpled suits with deep circles underneath their eyes — like a buoy in the ocean, she obediently follows her brother to his car and wonders if she looks as out of place as she feels.

Elfman chatters happily about the lunch his girlfriend prepared for Lisanna—something she'll just _love_ with crabs and avocado and shellfish (_she's allergic to shellfish,_ Lisanna has to remind him)—asking her when her graduation ceremony is, laughing when she tells him it was in July, giving pointers for the job hunt as if he's ever worked in the States, and taking her monosyllabic answers with an enthusiasm that honestly just leaves her feeling all the more drained.

It's not that she isn't ecstatic to see him, because she _is_ — Lisanna's over the moon. Of course she is. It's just that— well, it's _that_, isn't it? It's realising that there's this whole life that she's completely absent from, where there isn't even a place for her. It's having to remember results of a divorce that led to her family moving continents and leaving her behind.

She's close to her siblings, she really is. She adores them with all her heart. But the distance is frightening, and she's just sat for eight hours straight to fly to the city that was the bad guy in all of her childhood nightmares.

Lisanna doesn't mean to drift to sleep against the cool glass of the car window, but when Elfman rouses her with a soft, "Lis? We're here," she wishes she could keep her eyes closed for just a little longer.


	3. in which she wears the bunny slippers

**notes—** in case it wasn't clear, this is a drabble-chapter fic! expect shorter chapters updated more frequently with scene-centric storytelling, some jumping POVs, that sort of thing. (nobody's allowed to mention that i went over the word limit with this chapter, shhh.)

* * *

_out_  
_of_  
_style_

* * *

**iii. in which she wears the bunny slippers**

;;

_dropped our bags on apartment floors,  
took our broken hearts—put them in a drawer_

.

.

It's apparent from the moment she's stepped inside the entrance hall that Lisanna's been expected. A pair of fluffy white slippers—_bunnies_, she notes wryly, knowing it's no accident—wait freshly laundered for her in one of the shoe storage compartments. She lightly shakes some of the rain from her hair, having accumulated enough water during the walk from the car to be dripping, and starts to unzip her boots.

Elfman teases her about the moans that escape her mouth when her travel-weary feet are finally free. Lisanna just hopes the slippers allow room for swelling. A surreptitious glance around reveals a narrow entranceway, well lit and clean but bare. The only decoration is the shoe storage shelf and the mirror above it. Stairs straight ahead lead up for about fifteen steep steps before careening to the right out of view.

"Ever!" She jumps when her brother's thundering voice booms from behind her. "We're home, babe!"

"Yeah, yeah—" Lisanna barely has time to slip on the slippers before Elfman's dragging her up the stairs. "Come on upstairs, dinner's almost ready," calls a woman who she has to guess must be Evergreen.

"Elfman, _wait, _my luggage—"

"It's fine, it's fine," he laughs, throwing her a grin over his shoulder. "She's been itching to meet you for years, you know!"

She purses her lip against an amused smirk at his antics and lets him drag her behind him.

Upstairs feels like part of an entirely different building. A spacious room accommodates a sitting area of plush burgundy cushions and love seats facing a large TV and sleek stereo system. The walls are heavy with what Lisanna guesses is abstract art—honestly, _only in France_—and the hanging ceiling lights have little green atom-model decorations. Behind the fancy furniture and fuzzy carpet is a modern kitchen, all silver gleam and black marble. A fair-skinned woman with long chestnut hair flits around the kitchen like she has wings, doing things in such a flurry that Lisanna can't even follow her actions.

When she hears them coming the woman glances up and Lisanna is hit with just how strikingly gorgeous she is. Round dark eyes, pink little lips, elegant bone structure — there's something distinctly fairy-like in the way the holds herself. Before she can stop it the words have left her lips. "Elfman, how the hell did you manage _that_?"

_Shit. _She freezes halfway through the living room, caught as if in the middle of the crime, the implications of what she just said leaving her cringing harder than ever. It just came out before she could help it but with the words hanging in the air, _could_ she have introduced herself in a worse way? Like, is it even possible? Lisanna doubts it.

But Evergreen doesn't seem fazed in the slightest, kissing her boyfriend in greeting without a care in the world. When she turns and gives Lisanna a quick once over, the girl in question tries hard to re-arrange her features into some semblance of a smile.

"I'm Evergreen," the woman nods, watching Lisanna over the rim of her glasses. "I've heard a lot about you from your siblings. So we're finally meeting."

_She already hates me. Oh my god._

"Lis, wine or juice?" Elfman's head is burrowed some cupboard, searching for glasses.

"Ah, yes—water's fine, thank you— um," she stumbles over her words. "You too. I mean, that's— I'm Lisanna Strauss." She bows her head slightly before stretching her lips into a wide, friendly smile. "Thank you for taking care of my idiot brother all these years. It's nice to finally meet you."

Like ice cracking over water, Evergreen answers with a warm smile of her own. "The pleasure's all mine." She gestures to one of the tall stools by the marble-top table. "Take a seat, you must be tired. I'm just draining the pasta, won't take a second."

Having survived preliminary scrutiny, Lisanna obediently hops onto one of the stools. Now off her feet, her exhaustion hits her like a ton of bricks. Sensing her fatigue, Evergreen shoos Elfman away from the cupboard he's _still_ shuffling around in and gets the drinks herself, setting ice water in front of Lisanna before she can so much as leave her seat.

"Thanks," she laughs awkwardly, and goes to take a sip.

Instead of taking a seat beside her, Elfman's spooning green liquid out of a saucepan as Evergreen pours pasta into a large glass bowl. He falls comfortably by her side like it's second nature, not even having to think about coordinating his actions with hers. They work like a smooth-oiled machine, filling in each other's gaps: Elfman gets the spoons, Evergreen the forks; he pours the thick green sauce—the promised avocado, Lisanna guesses—over the steaming torchietti as she mixes it in.

Despite the loneliness crawling up the inside of her curved wrists, locking her inside stiff elbows, Lisanna loves watching them move in sync around the kitchen. They prepare the meal like they've done it a hundred times before. So comfortable with one another, in a harmony that only time and practice and patience can grow; it's lovely to see. Lisanna's chest feels warm.

"What are you grinning at?" Elfman shoots at her from across Evergreen's head, cocking an eyebrow. The grin from the airport is still in place and showing no signs of leaving.

Lisanna shakes her head mutely, unaware of the curve of her own lips until it was pointed out.

"Ah!" Evergreen throws up her hands suddenly, almost whacking Elfman in the eye. Lisanna's cackling before she knows it; there's little specks of green in his white hair from where Evergreen flicked it with the spoon still clenched in her hand. The perpetrator, however, doesn't seem to notice her boyfriend's offended huff. "I forgot the shrimp, damn it, damn it!" Before Lisanna can pull the smirk off her face, Evergreen rounds on her. "Lis, be a dear, fetch the white bag from the entranceway, would you? I must have forgotten to bring it in."

Lisanna nods eagerly, slipping off the stool and reclaiming her bunny slippers. It isn't until she's almost at the stairs, with Elfman's incredulous "You splashed me, Ever!" and the answering, "You idiot, you've got sauce all over you!" resounding in her ears, that she registers what Evergreen called her. _Lis._ So naturally, as if she didn't even need to think about it, as if she was used to referring to her by nickname, the endearment casual and natural. Surely, she must have picked it up from Lisanna's siblings.

The warmth in her chest increases at the thought. Just thinking about it like that—Mira-nee telling stories that begin with "this one time Lis got lost on the subway," and everyone knowing who she means, Elf-niichan telling his girlfriend about Lis' animal-nerd tendencies—has her squeezing her eyes shut with happiness. It's such a stupid thing to get happy over, but—

Wait, _Elf-niichan_? The thought stops her short as she's bending down to grab the white grocery bag of seafood. She hasn't called him that since— oh, since _years_ ago, back when her mother still accompanied her on trips to Paris to visit her father and siblings. What feels like a _lifetime_ ago... Wow.

This is what she's thinking about—what has her _distracted_—when the front door swings open, slamming her square on the crown of her head and sending her careening into the floor with a shocked little shriek.

"Jesus Christ! Oh, _fuck_. Pfft—"

"Bixlow! Don't_ laugh_, for God's sake."

"Such an asshole."

"Laxus, we can both see you grinning, too..."

"I'm allowed to, she's my sister-in-law."

"I wish he'd stop _howling_ already. It's indecent."

"You think everything's indecent."

"I can't believe he's still giggling. Look, she's _bleeding!_"

"Ah, shit. Mira's gonna—"

"I'm gonna what? Wait, Bixlow, are you... are you _crying_?"

Lisanna squeezes her eyes shut, still curled up on the floor, and blindly thinks through the pain searing in her scalp that today is just _not her day_ for introductions.


End file.
